Seven Stages
by oflymonddreams
Summary: Fifteen years before the first scene in CollarRedux: how did Greg House become a slave? Rated M for sexual content, strong language, and violence.
1. Debt Collection

_This is tag team kink! Illumin and Tailkinker had been asking me for a while if I'd write about the early days of How Greg Became A Slave in the CollarRedux universe, and I resisted, until Illumin sent me some very graphic ideas about how it might go (Stage 3 is largely based on them, down to some of the dialog), and then... inspired, I wrote this, and Tailkinker wrote the parallel story from Greg's POV. This all takes place fifteen years before the opening scenes in CollarRedux. We'll be taking turns to post chapters: Stage 1-3 today, then 4, 5, Stages 6-7_. _Hope you enjoy: look for Tailkinker's take on this later!_

**Seven Stages**

**Stage 1: Debt collection**

There were three kinds of debtors, as far as the bailiffs of Slave Administration were concerned: cupcakes, sheep, and weasels. Cupcakes showed up at the Administrative center, papers in hand, and turned themselves in quite obediently. Sheep stayed home. Most debtors were sheep: they seemed to think that if they just didn't report themselves, perhaps it wouldn't happen. Sheep collection runs were tiresome, but easy enough: the sheep sometimes cried but rarely fought. Weasels were the ones who neither turned themselves in nor stayed home. Weasels ranged from ones who were practically sheep - they went to stay with a close relative or a friend, dumbly thinking that if they weren't at their home address, they wouldn't be collected - to ones who were almost rats: they ran and hid themselves so successfully they were hard to find. Rats were the ones who got away, at least temporarily: most were brought in on a bounty months or years later.

Gregory House was a weasel. Not a very successful one, though. When the bailiffs showed up to collect him, he wasn't home. There was a collection of bottles, mostly very empty. The weasel's nest he lived in was littered with takeout cartons with cigarette ends stubbed out in the dried-on food. They found an array of cards and matchbooks from local bars. They'd broken in carefully, without damaging the lock, and left without locking the door behind them. What Gregory House owned was now the property of his landlord - unless the upright piano was his, it probably wouldn't cover his back rent.

They found their quarry in the third bar they tried, easily recognisable from the photos they'd been given. He was sitting with his head practically on the bar, an empty glass in front of him. The bartender was wiping glasses and trying, the bailiffs heard, to urge him to go home.

"He hasn't got a home," they told the bartender, and put their ID cards down on the bar. She looked at the cards and flinched back, as if slavery were infectious. They took their quarry's wallet - the credit cards would be destroyed - and gave the bartender what remaining cash was left. There wasn't much.

One of them held him upright - he was taller than either of them, but so drunk he wasn't fighting - and the other searched his pockets. Keys, cellphone, wallet, a packet of cigarettes and a matchbook - there were three cigarettes left - the usual small detritius of a free man's pockets. They emptied it all into the bag that would be delivered with the slave to the Administration Center.

The bailiff's car was designed to hold weasels a lot more awake and angry. The back of the car was a cage, with rings to fix shackles to. This weasel groaned when he was dumped into it, but went right out: he wasn't going to be any trouble, and they didn't shackle him.

In one sense he wasn't any trouble: they took him out of the car as dead drunk as when they'd put him in. But he'd puked all over the floor, and though they tried, they couldn't make him wake enough to clean it up himself. They dragged him in between them and handed him over to Administration for processing: and then they had to go back out to their car and clean it up.


	2. Notarization

**Stage 2: Notarization**

Every adult debtor who arrives at the Slave Administration Center deserves it. The ones the admissions clerk feels sorry for are the children: it's legal for a custodial parent to sell a minor child into slavery, and many debtors do, though sometimes they end up at the Administration Center afterwards anyway. Children are processed at a separate unit from adults: the admissions clerk only deals with them here when there are walk-ins.

The bailiffs who dump this debtor in front of her are in a hurry to get back out to their vehicle: the debtor is drunk and he vomited in the back. They drop the man's possessions in front of her, and the man himself on a trolley - she insists: he's obviously in no state to walk, and she has to get him processed and into holding. After that he will be someone else's problem.

There are formalities that have to be followed, even if the debtor is unconscious. Fingerprints have to be taken. Retinal scans. She has to prop up one eyelid then the other. The man stinks. He's obviously some kind of lowlife, he'll probably be better off as a slave, kept clean, fed properly, and not allowed to drink or smoke. She reads the legal wording out loud, as is required, before she notarizes it. The man is now a slave.

Fitting the holding cuffs and collar on is actually easier when the slave is unconscious. Awake and aware, slaves often have to be forced to place their wrists, then their ankles, then the neck, in the machines that size them and fit them. The last machine that fits the holding collar is called the Guillotine. She doesn't know why: the brand name is GatesCorp.

The staff in Admissions will get rid of the slave's clothing. She doesn't have to. On the way back to her desk, she drops the bag of stuff emptied out of his pockets off at recycling. She enters his details into the system, and forgets him almost immediately.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

**_Warnings._****_ Warnings. _****_Warnings._**

**_This story should have a lot of them. It's a slave story, so noncon can practically be taken for granted. If you don't like, don't read. _**

**_If you do read... well, so far the story's pretty tame. It gets worse. Some seriously nasty shit happens to House in the Slaves Administration Center: abuse, confinement, dehumanization, torture... _**

**_How could someone like House be made to be a slave? Not easily...  
_**


	3. Admissions

**Stage 3: Admissions**

The Administration Center has a dozen admissions cages, but they're rarely all in use at once. Today is an average day: the bailiffs have brought in six. One cupcake, three sheep, two weasels. One of the weasels had drunk himself into unconsciousness. They process the cupcake first: he's trying to be brave, but when Ted does the thing with the glove half way through the cold shower, he starts crying, and he cries all the way through the admissions process and he's still sobbing when they put him back in the holding cage, clean and shaved bald, for the processors to collect. The weasel who was awake is standing in the middle of her cage, watching them carefully; they decide without talking about it to leave her till last, so there'll be plenty of time if she fights to subdue her without leaving marks. The bailiffs stripped her naked. The other weasel is sitting in his cage, still looking pretty drunk.

One of the sheep grabs the bars of his cage as they pass. "I shouldn't be in here!" he tells them loudly. (The other two sheep are sitting quietly: one of them is crying, but not noisily.) Ted stops and swings his baton: slaves don't speak till they're spoken to. Ben stops and watches. The baton connects with a shock, and the sheep yells. He's a solid middle-aged man, wearing a business suit: the notary clerk got his tie and shoes.

"I shouldn't!" The sheep goes to his knees, still clinging to the bars, staring at them. "There's some mistake, there's a mistake, I shouldn't be here!"

Ted grins and rattles his baton along the slave's knuckles: the slave screams. He jerks his hands back and hugs them against his shirt. "But I shouldn't _be_ here!" he says, whining, surprised.

Ben whips his baton through the bars and hits the slave's shoulder, shocking him into a scream and a recoil towards the other side of the cage: they're a good team, and Ted is already there, slapping the slave on the other side, making him shriek and recoil again. He crouches on the floor of the cage, whimpering, but there are no more words.

They take the sheep that's crying next. She makes no resistance, not twisting away from Ted's gloved hands in the shower, not even when she's shaved. She just weeps, steadily, but she's an easy job. So is the sheep who was yelling, though they had to shock him again: he was banging on the bars, trying to attract attention. He curses them, claims he's just warning them, they'll get into trouble, he knows important people, right until when they shave his genitals. Then he falls silent. An expression of anguish spreads over his face. Ben nudges Ted and they both laugh: probably until this guy went broke he was important, but now he's just another piece of human property. It's always funny watching the self-important guys realise that once they're in the process, they're nothing.

The drunk weasel looks a bit more awake now. Maybe it was worth getting him through to the next stage. If he pukes then, it's Processing's problem. They rattle his cage door open and pull him out by his legs, get him to his feet. He's tall, pretty fit, still drunk enough he's having trouble walking: they warn him about puking and get him to the showers. This guy does one of those look-and-waits - he takes off his shoes and socks and stands there barefoot as if he's expecting them to leave so he can shower in private.

"Get on with it, boy, what are you waiting for?" Ted demands loudly.

The guy looks at them blankly.

"I think he needs some help," Ben says, and steps closer.

That message sinks in pretty quickly. The weasel gets out of his pants and t-shirt. He hesitates over his underwear. They could have forcibly removed it, they had with the sheep, but the weasel is stinky enough that neither of them want to touch it. Ben snarls, "The underwear as well, you know the drill," and the slave pulls it off and stands there naked, moving his hands to cover his cock and balls. That habit will get taken out of him in Processing, it's a free man's reaction to being naked, so Ben and Ted just grin at each other and hook him up by the wrists to the ceiling. The hooks move along the rod they're attached to, so they can move the weasel until his feet are positioned right for the floor rings. They've done it a thousand times, the only reason this is different is the guy's height, and they can winch the hooks up once they have his ankle cuffs fastened. The slave grunts, and looks as if he's about to speak, so Ben takes the shower head and sprays the slave in the face.

Ben sprays the slaves down with cold water and Ted gloves up and soaps them. This is when the instruction manual says you should discuss the slave's body, as demeaningly as you can, right when the slave's getting their first experience of being immobilised and in discomfort and helpless as a free person handles them. There's always something to say. Any time the slave tries to respond, Ben gets him in the face with a jet of water. Ted's got a useful little trick he does when he's soaping down a slave's ass, sticking his gloved finger up the hole and giving the slave a little rough handling right there: that's when the cupcake of the day started crying. The weasel doesn't cry, but he lets out this nice little squeal and Ted laughs. "Bet he's a regular bottom, aren't you boy?" Ben rinses off the soap scum with plenty more cold water, and they make sure the slave sees the clothes he was wearing being thrown in the big FOR INCINERATION container.

The next stage is grooming. That room's down the hall, because it's used for all the slaves being held in the Center, they all get shaved clean every three days. Slaves are only allowed to grow their hair once they're ready for sale. The slave is shivering. He's being very obedient. Sensible - but weasels often aren't. The one waiting for them in the admissions cells will probably try to run. Table 15 is free. They both pull on aprons and glove up, they both need to handle him now and he hasn't had any blood tests or health checks.

"Up on the table," Ted orders the slave, and he goes quite readily and lies down. His eyes widen as they fasten the wrist cuffs above his head and the ankle cuffs to either side of the table. They shave him bald and get rid of his beard and mustache. He's got heavy growth on his chest and stomach and pits, it takes time to get rid of it all. The slave's watching them, not protesting, pretty docile. When they unhook his ankles from the table and lift his legs it seems to dawn on him finally what's happening. He curses them, he tries to kick, but they can fasten a slave in any position, this one now has his ankles fastened above his head and wide apart so he's all but folded in half, knees bent to his chest, ass, cock, and balls exposed so they can get to work. He's breathless, swearing at them, but it takes more air than he's getting to keep shouting.

Ben grins at Ted. "Every fucking time. They always try to resist this part."

Ted pats the slave. "This is for your own good, boy, wouldn't want you spreading any parasites."

Once the slave is immobilised you can only tell he's trying to fight by the muscle tension. Ben does his usual good, thorough job - he likes fucking hairless slaves - and Ted goes on patting the slave, gentling him. The manual doesn't have any specific instructions about what to talk about at this point, so Ben and Ted talk about the game on Saturday. They're both still paying attention to the slave, though, more than he probably realizes, and Ted notices that the slave is trying to breathe deep, trying to regain some dignity. That can't be allowed. They're not required to deliver the slaves back to their cages in tears, but it's always good when they do: it makes it easier for the processing staff, and they take pride in doing a good job at their stage.

Ted lifts two fingers, out of the slave's limited field of view, and Ben nods and goes on with the slave's balls, getting them clean of hair. Ted comes back with a training dildo and a small simple harness. Ted lubes the dildo: the slave is perfectly positioned already. His eyes go wide as he feels the first touch against his asshole: slowly and inexorably, Ben slides it into the slave's ass, grinning at him. Ted is bending over the slave, whispering to him, the usual things, threats and promises; the slave squeals again as the dildo plunges inside him. The harness fastens neatly round his waist, and they hook it to his wrist shackles when they unlock him from the table. Unless he holds his hands in one exact position, he will tug on the dildo inside him.

They pull the slave to his feet, and grin at each other again as the slave gasps to feel the dildo shifting inside him, and shifting again with each step he takes. They walk him back down the hall to the cage and push him inside. He isn't quite crying but there's no dignity about him. He tries to sit down carefully and Ben taps one nipple with his baton on the lowest setting: he twitches and goes down anyhow, and they leave him huddled naked in the corner of the cage.

_*tbc*_

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

_Tailkinker's turn! If you don't know their work you should... Tailkinker's retelling the story in "Seven Stages" from Greg's POV, look for this other side to the story on the Collarverse community or at Tailkinker's profile._

_Stage 4 will be posted tomorrow!_

**_Warnings._**


	4. Processing

_Warning**: **This is a story in which Greg House gets turned into a slave: depersonalization, dehumanization, humiliation, confinement, and other horrors. ** Really: don't like, don't read.** This story is about commercial slavery and the process of turning a free person into a slave. _**  
**

**Stage 4: Processing**

**4.1 Cleansing**

Sam signed in for her shift in Processing five minutes late: her car broke down and it always takes a while to get a cab driver willing to go out to the Center. Her boyfriend will pick her up at the end of the shift and tow her car. They both work shifts and rarely manage this kind of spontaneous meet-up, so even though she's not looking forward to the bill for the car repairs, this feels like a treat, to know she'll see him at the end of the day.

A shift in Processing begins with a thorough scrub and change into the Center uniform. Then there's half an hour's briefing and synchronization. With practice, Sam can do the scrub in less than twenty-five minutes, and she has to, because it would be unacceptable to be late for the briefing.

There are forty-one slaves in Processing right now, spread across one hundred crates. That's an average number - there are always empty crates, and need to be, because each of them must be taken out of the crate at least twice in every six hour shift, for exercise, for elimination/cleansing, for measuring, and about every 70 hours to be taken to grooming. After having been taken out, they must be put back into a different crate. They are fed about every 8 hours, and given half a pint of water every 4 hours precisely. They can't be allowed to develop any sense of routine, so their assignments have to be carefully worked out - nothing more difficult to create, Sam's boss said once, than the appearance of randomness.

She's been assigned 12 slaves for her shift, but four of them are just food or water assignments, they don't count: and now she's done her first three months in Processing, she's being assigned slaves from the Admissions end of the room, not just the Education end.

Slaves are objects to be used. Free people who have been enslaved for debt or sold themselves have become objects, and need to have that ground into them. It usually takes 24 to 26 shifts, about 140 to 160 hours in Processing for a slave to be ready for Education.

The list of assignments started with an exercise session, then an elimination/cleansing break, then two measuring sessions in a row, then her lunch. After lunch, exercise, a trip to Grooming, another measuring session, and an elimination/cleansing break at the end of the day. Could be worse: Sam hated having to do elimination sessions just before lunch, and she hadn't been assigned to collect any slaves from Admission this shift. She synchronized her watch, set the silent alarms for the start of each session and for the two water assignments, and with the other staff starting their shift, went into the Processing room.

There's always some noise from the Admissions end. Last shift a particularly noisy slave was brought in - literally the only time he quieted down was when he was gagged for force-feeding. The first thing Sam heard was an irregular rattling kicking noise, accompanied by hoarse cursing. She looked at Robby and raised her eyebrows: "Sounds like the same guy," she said quietly.

The first exercise session was with a young woman who was already at the mid-point of the room - stunned acceptance rather than eager submission, she was easy to handle rather than compliant. She wasn't particularly fit: after Sam and the other three had locked her to the exercise machine, she cried and panted and once protested, as Sam turned the speed up again, "No..." but the four of them put her back in a crate a little bit further up the room: only the one word had escaped her, she'd been silent after that.

It's strictly against the rules to talk to a slave in Processing as if they were able to understand, and a disciplinary offense to respond to any questions the slave asks. Most slaves just quit talking after a few shifts, even though they're never punished for making a noise.

The noisy slave, still right down at Admissions end about 20 hours after he'd been brought in, rattled the cage door and shouted at them when they approached. Handling a slave at this stage took teamwork: Sam unlatched the door, Man and Robby grabbed his wrists and locked them together, they hauled him out and Sam and Sarah got his ankles into the long shackles. Haul him to his feet - he was tall - and clip two leashes to his collar. Sam took one, Robby took the other, Man and Sarah grabbed his elbows, and they walked him over to the squat toilet. He fell silent briefly as they walked him, as if he was out of breath.

They were fed slave chow - amounts based on the slave's weight and fitness, nutritious pellets with plenty of fibre and all the necessary vitamins and minerals. Their water intake was regulated. It was possible to predict a bowel movement to within minutes, providing the slave had a healthy bowel and wasn't resisting with hysterically tightened sphincters.

The slave's records showed that so far, he'd needed two enemas - he'd only once managed to go at the squat, within the required five minutes. Sam and Robby hooked his collar up to the overhead pole with the leashes, to keep his head up, and Robby and Sarah got his ankles fastened to the ringbolts, the right distance apart to bring him into a squat. He cursed them, seemingly getting his breath back. Sam found she had to keep reminding herself that he was just chattel, no more sense getting mad at what he was saying than getting mad at a chair when she barked her shin on it. Unfasten his wrist cuffs, haul his arms out to the sides, fasten them to the side poles: he was held in the right position. Sarah went to get an enema kit, and the other three stood and watched.

"I don't need an audience," the slave said. He was grinning, showing all of his teeth, but his voice was shaking. He tried to shake his head and the leashes rattled. When he started singing, his voice got a bit stronger. "Lick my ass nicely, lick it nice and clean, nice and clean, lick my ass..." His voice trailed off. He swallowed. "Can't you put up a screen, you sick fuckers? Do you get off on this?" He was ready to give in, Sam judged: his voice was hoarse and tired. "You can't treat people like this, this isn't right..." He tugged on the arm bonds, but he was held securely. "It's no good, I can't do this, I can't..."

His voice trailed off. He was staring past them. His mouth went open. They knew by the smell before they saw that they weren't going to need the enema kit. And he pissed himself too, without needing any extra help.

They hosed him down, front and back, and reshackled him to walk him back to the crate. He was remarkably quiet for all that time, and they put him into a crate a bit further up the line. But almost as soon as they walked away - Sam's first water assignment was due in five - he started kicking at his crate again, loud rattling thumps, that didn't let up: when Sam went for lunch he was still at it.

She noticed when the noisy slave was taken out of the crate again for a measuring session in the second half of her shift, he followed the same pattern - screaming curses, silenced this time only when they were measuring his mouth for gags, and then when he was returned to his crate - back down the line again, Sam saw - he shook and kicked at it.

Sam didn't talk about Measuring to her boyfriend. He might have got the wrong idea. Measuring included a regular check of the slave's weight and muscle tone. But it also checked the slave's internal measurements and reactions to being used with dildos, butt plugs, speculums, and gags: how wide could a slave's anus be stretched? How thick - and how long - a dildo could a slave take? What was the largest gag a slave could safely be used with? Could a slave be forced to orgasm? Sam didn't get off on it - she knew some of the staff came back in offduty hours to make use of slaves who were particularly responsive, but she couldn't see the hairless, manipulated bodies as attractive at all - but it could easily be misunderstood, so she just didn't talk about it.

Her boyfriend picked her up at the Center's gates just after shift-end. After they'd dealt with her car, they went back to his place for pizza and a movie.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

**4.2 Management**

Most free people who were enslaved for debt or sold themselves had no real idea what it meant to be a slave. Admissions was an important initial lesson. Processing was where their chattel status was ground into them.

Processing was the most labor-intensive section of the Center, staffed continuously, 24 hours a day, four shifts overlapping with each other, ensuring that the slaves held in the crates and in the continuous artificial light, had no awareness of the passing of time. It was usual for a slave to take six or seven days to move from initial rebellion to stunned acceptance to active cooperation. A slave wasn't ready for Education until they were cooperative, eager to please their handlers, and always silent unless told to speak. Sometimes a slave had to be returned to Processing from Education for a few days. For bookkeeping purposes, thirty days is the maximum time a slave can be held in Processing.

The Processing manager holds a weekly meeting of all the heads of shift, normally just a quick catchup of what everyone's been doing: last week three heads of shift mentioned an unusually noisy, active slave, just two days in from Admissions. This week, disturbed by virtually every report, the manager has decided to allot half an hour specifically to discuss what they can do with a slave who hasn't been progressing up the line from Admissions at all.

"To summarise," the manager said briefly, "This slave fights the shackles, he kicks and hits the inside of his crate, and he shouts, curses, or occasionally _sings_, pretty much continuously whenever his mouth is unplugged, unless he's asleep. And we can only get him to sleep by exercising him to exhaustion starting an hour after he's fed. Does he have any good points at all?"

By policy, no one who handles the slaves in Processing directly should know anything in detail about the slave's value or background. The manager is aware that this slave has considerable potential value: he was a doctor before he was enslaved, a well-qualified one. Smart and dumb slaves have come through Processing in the manager's time here, people with professional training and homeless walk-ins looking to get owned for a warm place to sleep, and none of them have caused as much trouble as this one. This one is taller than average - his head and his feet will always touch the ends of the crate, unless he curls up - but height alone doesn't explain the persistent, futile rebellion.

"He's extremely sexually responsive," three shift heads said almost simultaneously, and glanced at each other.

"He's quite a _good_ singer," another shift head said. She spread her hands on the table, reacting to the looks she was getting. "I'm not being funny, sir, it's one of his points: he's got a nice body, he can be pretty consistently forced to orgasm, he can sing."

"But he's completely unsellable," another shift head said. "Furthermore, he's causing disruption in Processing as long as he's there."

"We're looking at his good points," the manager reminded them. "Is there any part of his processing he doesn't fight? For example, I think he's only needed to be force-fed once?"

"Yes, he eats, and he's never refused water."

"We had to give him five enemas, in total, I think," another shift head said. The manager nodded. "But that was in the first few days. For the past four or five days, he's learned to go on the squat."

"And it makes him shut up," another shift head said. "Temporarily, anyway."

"Really?" The manager was interested. "What else makes him shut up?"

"Orgasm," everyone said.

"He sometimes cries afterwards, but he doesn't talk," a shift head clarified.

"Humiliation?" the manager suggested. "Is that the key?"

"I don't think so," the shift head who'd commented on the slave's singing said, thoughtfully. "I'm not sure he's humiliated by what we do to him any more."

"What makes you think that?"

"He stopped singing," she said. "And he's not cursing coherently any more. He doesn't seem to be thinking about fighting us, he just _is_. I think it's loss of control. If we could somehow permanently make him feel as out of control as he does then, I think he'd shut up."

The meeting went on, but afterwards the manager thought; that was the smartest thing anyone said at it.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

**4.3 Control**

Margrethe announced the plan for silencing the noisy slave at the start of the shift. The assignments for the shift had already been made: he was due to be removed from his crate once for exercise and once for measurement. He would be fed an hour from the end of the shift.

"Hope this works," someone said, rather pessimistically, from the back.

The reports on this slave said repeatedly: he watches. He pays attention. He's hard to surprise. He's always alert, unless you exercise him to exhaustion. He's sexually responsive unless he's hurt - if he's in pain he won't react, and he actively tries to get hurt rather than have to respond. Whipping a slave like this - an option at this stage - would be counterproductive. He's potentially very valuable, if he can be processed.

"Me too," Margrethe agreed. "Remember, though: he shouldn't experience this as punishment. You're to do nothing to surprise him or frighten him after we fix the ear pads. Just go through your usual routine."

She watched as a team of four removed him from his crate. He started to bellow incoherently at them: just as she'd described to the manager, he was no longer trying to make words. He was just shouting. As planned, after he had been fastened to a table, the gel buds were fitted into his ears, and pads taped over them and taped down, Margrethe had tried it herself, and found that it cut out all sound: she was left with the pulse of her blood in her head. They were using tape that would take surgical spirit to remove. Margrethe pointed to his hands: "Trim his nails back to the quick. I'll send a note to Grooming to make sure they keep him trimmed."

The team unfastened him from the table and helped him off it, then led him over to the exercise machine. The slave wasn't shouting any more. He was staring around, his eyes flickering from point to point. He was fastened up to the machine, still in silence, and once the machine had started, Margrethe went over to nod approval and say, quietly for the sake of the other slaves, "Good job."

"It worked," one of the team said.

"For now, anyway," Margrethe warned them. "But it's a start."

As she'd feared, though he remained silent - and was seen to be fumbling at the pads with his fingers - the slave banged and kicked at his crate when he was put into it.

The next day, on someone else's shift, his eyes were sealed shut and pads were put over his eyes and taped down. When Margrethe's shift started, she saw with relief that the combination of being both blind and deaf had silenced him completely. The slave nicknamed "Noisy" was lying still and quiet in the crate. He was taken out to be fed and watered now, as he couldn't see to feed himself: Margrethe watched approvingly as a handler tapped him gently on the jaw to get him to open his mouth, and spooned a mouthful of pellets inside.

At first he only cooperated when he was both blind and deaf: when they took the pads off either eyes or ears, he shouted again, he kicked the crate. But his energy for fighting them seemed diminished.

When Margrethe had the eyepads put back on and the slave screamed, it seemed to be involuntary: he still tried to cooperate when the handlers guided him gently back to the crate. She had the earbuds put in again and he stopped screaming. Once when Margrethe was standing next to the slave when he was being hosed down, she heard him say, in a very small and disconnected voice, "Want to come in now," but she never heard him say a word after that.

His progress is still slow: when he's blind and deaf the staff are instructed to treat him gently, never rough, using plenty of lube when he's fucked, taking it slow and easy when he's measured, handfeeding him his ration of slave chow at an easy rate, even letting him take his time at the squat toilet.

Eighteen days after the slave had entered processing, nine days after they had begun the process of sensory deprivation, Margrethe had his eyes and ears unsealed.

Over the next thirty-six hours, according to a special schedule, they would have him groomed, measured, cleansed, used by staff (there were several volunteers), and exercised. Then he would be left in the crate by himself for eight hours, without either food or water. Neither she nor any of the handlers on her shifts had heard him make a voluntary sound in days, he cooperated with the handlers, he was quiet when resting in the crate. Forty-eight hours of such good behavior, able to hear and see, and they'd be done with him.

Margrethe was genuinely optimistic about his chances: he seemed to be really ready for Education.

**_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_**

_Tailkinker's parallel story of Seven Stages will be updated in a few hours giving Greg's POV on Processing. The next Stage, "Education", will be published tomorrow_._ According to our inspired and inspiring beta-reader Illumin, it's even worse than "Processing"... but if you've enjoyed so far, please review!_

_((Pointless Trivia: "Leck mich im Arsch" is a drinking song written by Mozart, that went unpublished for two centuries after his death. House is singing an English translation to be found in Wikipedia.))_


	5. Education

_This is a story in 7 stages about how Greg House became a slave. It takes place about 15 years before the start of CollarRedux. Horrible things happen: this is a story about turning people - including children - into slaves to be sold. Warning in this section for child abuse (not sexual)._

**Stage 5: Education**

**5.1 The Management Thanks You For Not Smoking**

It isn't every job where being an occasional smoker is actually a job skill.

Any slave who used to smoke when they were free is tested after three weeks and repeatedly tested at irregular intervals till they're sold. After three weeks the physical addiction has faded. Health insurance for slaves won't pay out on any illness that's related to or caused by tobacco addiction, if the slave used any tobacco after they were sold for the first time. Owners have the right to know they're buying a slave warranted tobacco-free.

This slave spent a long time in processing, but he was a pack-a-day smoker when he was free. The first time Brad was assigned to take him from the exercise block to the dorm, the slave walked obediently on the leash, his wrist cuffs hooked together in front of him. He holds his hands in the correct position, not covering his cock and balls. He looked surprised when Brad took a detour outdoors, but he stood quietly while Brad smoked a cigarette - not a brand Brad would smoke by preference, but paid for as a work expense! - and said nothing. Brad walked him back inside and to the dorm, where the slave is due to be washed, fed, and allowed to sleep. The second time Brad tested him, the slave looked hungrily at the cigarette, his fingers twitching, but he still said nothing. Brad checked the schedule for the addictions cage, and found a 36-hour slot free starting at 10 next Tuesday, three days away. So on Tuesday morning at 10, Brad showed up to collect the slave from exercise to take him to be groomed, with the customary detour out of doors for a smoke.

Brad opened up the new packet of cigarettes, the brand the slave smoked when he was free, right in front of him. He took out a cigarette, settling it between his lips. He clicked the lighter, drew in a mouthful of smoke, inhaled it out through his nose, sighed pleasurably. He was about halfway through the cigarette when the slave said "Please, sir..." in a small voice.

"What?" Brad looked at the slave, acting surprised that he'd spoken.

"Could I... please..." The slave's hands were literally twitching. "Please, could I have a smoke?"

"You want one of these?" Brad still acted surprised. "Used to be a smoker?"

The slave nodded. He gave Brad a slightly crooked, wry grin. "I know 'dying for a smoke' is a cliche, but I haven't had a puff now since I woke up with the worst hangover I can remember, wearing these killer accessories." He lifts his wrists a little, using both hands to point at his neck.

Brad grinned. He pulled the special gag out of his pocket. "You'll get the whole pack and more," he said. "Enjoy." He fixed the gag on the slave's mouth and shoved him down on to his hands and knees: the slave deserves a bit of extra humiliation for his presumption. Brad slid a cigarette into the gag's mouthpiece, clipped the hold, and lit the cigarette. He finished the one he'd started, and headed back into the building, the slave on hands and knees at his side with the gag in his mouth, puffing involuntarily on the cigarette.

The slave was a pack a day smoker. So he'll get a cigarette every half hour to an hour in the addiction cage. Even if he has to be woken up to smoke it. For 24 hours, two packs of cigarettes. Nicotine addiction will come roaring back. No one will tell him how long this will last - just as in Processing, where he'll be going for 72 hours after the cage to kick the worst of the nicotine craving. But Processing is relatively private. This will be public. The addiction cage is in the main entrance hall of Administration. Fresh air, doors opening and closing, people coming in and out.

The slave crawled well. Maybe he was hoping that good behavior would win him some leniency. Maybe he was expecting some kind of punishment. Brad led him into the hall, up to the empty cage, and the handlers who were waiting got the slave fitted into the cage. It's the sort of framework that has to be adjusted for each slave in it; the cage is meant to hold the addict snugly, not allowing any room for movement. Even a Processing crate should come as a relief after this. Brad put down two full, sealed cigarette packs where the slave could see them. A handler is catheterizing the slave: another is fitting him with a buttplug. The slave will be forcefed when in the cage, which is the only time the cigarette gag will be removed. As required, the buttplug will be removed and the slave will be cleaned out with an enema, then the buttplug re-fitted. Some staff come to watch the enemas when a slave's in the addiction cage: Brad finds that weird, but he had to admit, he got a kick out of the look in a slave's eyes when they realize they're totally helpless in the cage. The slave's penis is offlimits because of the catheter, and his mouth can't be touched because of the gag, and his anus has to stay plugged except when a handler is giving him an enema, but every other part of him can be handled at will, if anyone cares to.

Brad waited till all of the fitting was done. The slave's head is held upright, all of him supported. Brad likes this slave's wide blue eyes.

"You're an addict, boy. That's not allowed. You're going to get those two packs of cigarettes before we let you out. Then we'll take you back to Processing to kick the nicotine addiction. You better be good, boy, because I don't think you've got too much Processing time left." (He has ten days, which should be fine: Brad doubts the slave will be aware how long he's in a Processing crate anyway, especially as they'll blind and deafen him temporarily for that time, to keep him calm.) "But we'll keep you in this cage until we're done making you smoke those."

The slave's mouth was blocked by the cigarette gag, but he made a grunt. It could be anything, but Brad chose to assume it was an apology. "Yeah, I bet you're sorry," he said. "Don't think this is punishment. Punishment is what your owner would do to you if you were caught smoking. Send you back here for reprocessing, probably. This is just your education, boy: lucky to get it."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

**5.2: Your Name Is...**

Every day, on the way into work, she walked by the physical training yard. It's a fenced off area, the instructors use it for slaves so they can practice outdoor training in adverse weather. This morning it's raining, a light cold drizzle, and there is a group of adult slaves being kept naked on their knees with their hands behind their back. When an instructor passes - they're walking about between the slaves, no pattern, so the slaves just have to be ready - the slave has to bend forward and kiss his or her feet then return to a kneeling position. It has to be done quickly, no hesitation, and if the slave can't do it without using their hands, there's a maximum time they're allowed to have their hands in front of them. Failures get a quick kiss of the red strap: the slave with the fewest marks from the strap at the end of the yard time will be rewarded with a bit of real food, not slave chow.

This is theatrics, it's nothing anyone would have their slave do to them in real life - at least not that Emma's ever seen. It's educational: the rain is cold, the slaves are wet and shivering, but they can't numb themselves into passivity, they have to keep themselves alert and watchful for their owner. And of course all the slaves in Education crave real food, though they get fed well enough to keep them healthy and fit.

An instructor passes by one of the male slaves, a skinny fellow with a long face, and he lunges for her shoe and plants his mouth on it and is upright again: the strap swings down and leaves a red dye mark across his shoulders, and Emma hears the instructor's voice, light and high, "No style, boy! You can do better than that."

Emma's job is interviewing slaves who already had some marketable skills when they were enslaved. This is not a sales job, though her reports get passed on to Sales. It's educational.

The office she uses looks quite like a sales office, though. It's meant to. The fourth slave she sees that morning is the skinny fellow who got the strap for not having enough style: he's got three red marks across his shoulders and torso, which means he probably didn't get any real food with his bowl of chow that morning. The escort who brought him here would have unclipped his leash before pushing him through the door: he looked comically surprised when he felt the warmth of the room on his bare skin and the softness of the carpet underfoot. But he goes to his knees in good form, head bowed, hands behind his back, legs slightly spread but not obscenely so. When she first started working for Slaves Administration, she thought she would never get used to seeing all these naked people, even though they were just slaves. But they're not really people any more. She doesn't like Admissions, because in Admissions the slaves still act like they're people. Processing is all right, she's helped out there sometimes when they're busy, but the crying slaves in the Admissions cages still bother her. She's learned not to talk about that.

She cleared her throat, tapped her pen. He stayed head down, frozen in place. "Boy," she said. He's a few years older than her, but that isn't important.

He looked up and stared at her.

"What's your name?" she asked.

An expression of relief, mixed with confusion, spread over his face. His jaw dropped a little. He swallowed and said, "I'm... I'm Doctor Gregory House. MD. I have a double speciality, nephrology and infectious diseases. I don't know how long I've been here - "

Emma tapped at the bell on her desk. She shook her head, making sure she looked very disappointed. The escort came in.

"This slave shouldn't be out of Processing," Emma said. "He tried to tell me what his name is. Take him back."

The escort reacted fast: the slave's wrists were over his head, the cuffs clipped together, ankle cuffs clipped together, kick to land the slave on his side.

The worst possible response a slave could make is to protest that Emma asked for his name. Emma watched with acute interest the struggle on the slave's face. He spent three weeks in Processing, he had to be blinded and deafened for part of the time to make him accept his status. She'd been warned he really might have to go back there, not just to wait out withdrawal, but for disobedience, and though it would reduce his value, if he did have to, the Administration were considering having him permanently deafened, blinded, or both.

The escort left the room to fetch a trolley. The door was still open. The slave whimpered, hearing the wheels coming back: they use those trolleys in processing if a slave stays there long enough to need grooming.

"Please," the slave said, in a small voice. "Ple - ase." He sobbed, halfway through the word, like a hiccup. "Sorry." He swallowed again. "This slave... sorry. Sorry."

That's good. Emma stood up. She said to the escort, in an official tone of voice, that she should wait outside for a few minutes. The door closed. Emma walked round and inspected the slave huddled on the carpet. She sighed, walked back to her desk, and leafed through the file for a bit. "You spent nearly four weeks in Processing already," she told him. (It was actually twenty-three days, including the time the slave had been there for nicotine withdrawal. But slaves lose track of time in there very fast.) "The maximum amount of time this Center will pay for a slave to be processed is thirty days. After that, well... I just have to find some kind of research project that can use another warm body." Emma didn't even look at the slave when she said this. She could hear him shifting and twisting on the carpet. She hoped he wasn't going to pee on it in fright, one slave did last year and it took weeks for Administration to install a new carpet.

The escort opened the door again. She rattled the trolley in. "Processing?" she asked, in an official voice.

Emma slid all the papers in the file together and clipped them. The slave had gone still. Emma said brightly "One last try. Boy. What's your name?"

The slave said, in a small broken voice, "Whatever you say... ma'am."

Lesson learned.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

**5.3 Do As You're Told And You Have Nothing To Fear**

She isn't supposed to be in the adult dorm. She's only 10. She says so, very hesitantly, but Lindsay is nice.

She was assigned to Lindsay when Mom and Dad had to sell her. They said they were sorry, and Lindsay says she's sure they were, but sometimes you just have to do things, and Cora should tell herself that by selling her, Mom and Dad and her little brothers get to stay a family, stay together. Lindsay is "Ma'am, Ms King" when anyone else is around of course, but Cora can call her Lindsay when they're alone together. Lindsay's her handler, and she makes Cora feel safe. Cora isn't the only girl Lindsay has to take care of, but Lindsay says Cora's the best.

"No, you shouldn't be," Lindsay told her, "but don't worry. All the slaves there are nearly ready to be sold, you'll be quite safe. I asked why it had to be you, and it turns out you're the only one who can do this job, so I'm afraid you'll have to. You know slaves have to do as they're told."

Cora hasn't seen anyone but Lindsay except in training classes (nameless instructors, Sir or Ma'am, and sometimes other slaves about her age) for three months. She got walked over to the main block with a leash on her collar, but Lindsay reassured her about it when she clipped it on: "You know how to walk on a leash. I have to do this to take you out, and I'm worried about this tummy ache of yours." They walked over to the main block just after breakfast, and she hadn't had anything to eat or drink since then. Cora doesn't want to eat, and she feels a bit nauseous, and all these strange adults make her feel uncomfortable, some of them dressed like Lindsay, none of them dressed like Cora, most of them naked except for the same collar and four cuffs that Lindsay had fitted on her after she was made a slave.

"It's really kind of bad," Cora said.

"I know," Lindsay said. "You just have to sleep in this dorm for the night. You can't have anything to eat, I'm sorry, but it would just have been the pellets over here, not anything nice. Tomorrow morning, the doctor will see you, and it will be better. The other slaves shouldn't talk to you, and if they try, you just tell them you're not allowed to talk to anyone."

"What if they touch me?" Cora knows, Lindsay's explained, that when she's 18 her owners will be allowed to have sex with her if they want to. She knows that if they try before she's 18 she should report them to Slaves Administration. It's scary, but eight years is a long way off, and Lindsay says Cora will get to go for training when she's 18, if her owners want.

"No one is allowed to touch you," Lindsay said.

"What if starts hurting more?"

"Then you call out that it's hurting and you need help," Lindsay said. "The dorms are all monitored. Someone will hear you and they'll send help."

"Why is it a job?" Cora asked suddenly. "I just have to sleep in this dorm overnight?"

"If one of the other slaves gets out of their bunk and comes over to look at you, or touch you, you scream loud," Lindsay said finally, after looking at Cora in a way that was a bit worrying. "You scream loud and make sure you look at his face so you know which one it was."

"Is that going to happen?" Cora asked. She was scared now.

Lindsay tousled her hair. "It shouldn't. But if it does, that's your job. Scream loud, look at his face. Okay?"

The pain in Cora's tummy was down and to the right. It hurt quite a lot, but it hurt less if Cora lay still. There were at least thirty, forty bunks in this narrow room, most of them occupied. Lindsay had put Cora to lie down in a lower bunk facing the door. There wasn't a blanket or a pillow or anything, just a flat smooth waterproof surface. Lindsay said Cora had to take her clothes off, the shorts and the t-shirt, but Lindsay would bring them back the next morning. "Just lie still. No one should pay attention to you."

And they hadn't when they came in, all these naked adults, men and women together, walking slow, each of them looking like they were just picking the nearest empty bunk. The lights didn't go down or anything, but Cora could hear them going to sleep: some of them snored and some of them sighed deeper, and one of them was snuffling, somewhere down the dorm, as if she was crying.

Cora went to sleep for a while, but she woke up and the pain was really bad. It was like someone was stabbing a knife into her, except the knife was inside her. The room was quiet except for all the adults sleeping. She tried to get up, to find Lindsay, and it really hurt: she realised after a few minutes blind pain that she had thrown up, and nearly wailed: she was untidy, and Lindsay had said she mustn't be untidy, she was going to get into trouble...

Lindsay said, if it hurts, call out, ask for help. Cora spat and coughed and it hurt more: she managed a breathless whimper "It hurts. Help."

There was a stir, like people had woken, but nobody moved or said anything to her. Lindsay said the ward was monitored. Cora tried to call louder, repeating "Help" and "Hurts", but she wasn't sure how loud was enough, and nobody came. Cora started to cry.

Someone moved. One of the adult slaves. He had half-turned, not moving from his bunk, he was staring at her.

"Help," Cora said. She was sure no one was going to hear. Lindsay had never lied to her. "Hurts. Please," she said.

The adult slave stood up. He looked very tall. He came over to her and knelt down by her bunk. "What hurts?"

"My tummy," she said.

"Where?"

Cora whimpered. She moved her right hand. "All down there."

"Okay." He put his hand over her tummy, right over her belly button. He had very large hard hands. It was right then that Cora remembered what Lindsay had said, how if anyone came over to her bunk and touched her or spoke to her she was to scream and look at his face. But Lindsay couldn't have meant this. The man had a long face, sad, pale eyes. The man pressed down slightly. "Does that hurt?"

"A bit."

He lifted his hand away and suddenly it hurt so much that Cora screamed anyway, screamed and screamed. The man wasn't by her bunk any more, he was by the door, banging on it and yelling. "There's a kid here with acute appendicitis! She needs surgery!" He yelled loud, he was like a megaphone, and she wasn't surprised when people came, at last.

Lindsay was with them. Everything was all right then. Other people were pinning the man down and rolling him about on the floor, or did she dream that? Everything was weird. Lindsay was there. Cora was moved onto a gurney, and Lindsay put a blanket over her, and walked along beside her, and was there when they put the mask over her face and she went unconscious.

When she woke up she was in like a hospital ward. The beds had clips and things on the side. Lindsay was standing by the bed. "How are you feeling?" she asked, and a few other silly questions, like who the President was and what year it was. Cora told her. "Am I okay?" she asked.

"You're going to be fine," Lindsay said. "That pain in your tummy was from your appendix, and the doctor cut it out. You need to rest for a few days, but we'll be going back over to your own room in an hour or so. It'll put off your being sold for a week or two, not more."

"Did I do the job right?" Cora asked.

"Yes, just right," Lindsay said.

"I looked at the man's face," Cora said. "The one who touched me."

"Good job," Lindsay said, nodding. "But we know who he is anyway, because he went and banged on the doors. He should have stayed in his bunk. He wasn't supposed to touch you."

Cora looked back at Lindsay doubtfully. Lindsay was nice: but she didn't seem to understand how awful the pain had been. The man hadn't touched her in a bad way, and he'd shouted and got her help. "He was supposed to just leave me there?" she said.

"We'd have come and got you," Lindsay said. She smiled reassuringly. "You did everything just right, Cora."

For the first time ever, Lindsay's smile and praise doesn't make Cora feel warm inside. She wants to know what will happen to the man who touched her. But she doesn't think Lindsay will tell her. And she doesn't suppose she'll ever find out.

_*tbc ... stages 6 & 7 tomorrow!*_

_In a few hours Tailkinker will update with "Greg's Story". Please read & review - RAL (Reviews Are Love)._


	6. Purchase

_If you've been with us this long... this is the story of How Greg Became A Slave, taking place 15 years before the opening scene in Collar Redux._

**Stage 6: Purchase**

**6.1 Marketing**

Most slaves pass through the Center without any difficulty or special attention. An adult gets six to ten days in Processing, a couple of weeks in Education: the usual rule is that an adult slave should be ready for sale within five weeks of being notarized, a minor child in three months. A slave with addictions may take a week or two longer - a day or two in the addictions cage, a few days back in Processing, some remedial work in Education.

The slave Greg was in Processing for twenty days initially, and the Processing manager had to use sensory deprivation to bring him under control. He lost five days early in Education, in the addictions cage and in a Processing crate, but they'd known he was a tobacco addict: and he was physically fit and limber, able to perform the physical training as well as slaves much younger, but none of his instructors got any sense of devotion from him: he was obeying because he knew he had to. He'd failed obedience tests from first to last, and he'd now been in Education for nearly a month.

"Though he did save us the girl," the manager for Minor Children pointed out. "The surgeon's report said she'd probably have died if we'd waited." He speaks tentatively. He's well aware that the profit margin on minor children without any special good looks or talent is low compared to the profit on a skilled adult male.

He gets unexpected support from the Sales manager, who nods firmly. "Yes, we should market him for his strengths. He is a very good, very conscientious doctor: I've got someone trying to find a hospital or a pharmaceutical company to take the sale right now."

"I thought he was going to one of the porn companies," the Education manager says, turning to the Processing manager. "Your reports were very enthusiastic. If he's sold to one of our customers in that field, we hardly need to worry about his tendency to disobey." They all, round the table, share a lubricious laugh. The porn companies keep their slaves under discipline that hardly varies from Processing.

"I got my staff to put together a slideshow," the Processing manager nodded, and looked at Sales.

"None of them want to make use of his medical training," the Sales manager objected. "How often do we get a slave with a medical license? It's downright wasteful to sell him anywhere that won't make use of that."

"That's exactly where he's most likely to disobey," the Education manager objected in turn. "He'd been perfectly behaved for days - for nearly two weeks, we'd hardly had a problem and then this girl with appendicitis becomes available, and we leave her in his dorm overnight to see if he's learned his lesson, and he acts like he'd never been through Processing at all - leaves his bunk, touches her, speaks to her, and then causes a big disruption in the dorms. We can't sell a slave as a doctor unless we can guarantee he'll practice medicine obediently."

"Well," the manager for Minor Children says again, quietly, "if I owned him, I'd want to know he would alert me to a sick slave so I could save my investment, even if he'd been ordered to stay where he was."

"If he'd done it to save his owner's investment, that would be different," the Education manager admitted. "But he didn't. He didn't even pretend he had. He said he did it because the girl would have died if he hadn't." The manager handwaves. "Of course we told him that the girl died anyway. And he cried."

"Where is he now?" the Admissions manager asked.

"In a crate in Processing," the Education manager said.

"I'd like to move him into Sales," the Sales manager said.

"And put him up for auction?" The next big auction date is in four days. It's Admissions job to have the buyers cleared, and only the most perfectly trained slaves go on the catwalk. There's a rueful chuckle round the table, thinking of Greg having one of his temper tantrums in the middle of the catwalk, screaming curses.

"We could put him on display at the auction," the Education manager said. "He isn't fit for open auction, but he would make up a very nice set piece as the center of a display, gagged or sucking cock."

"We have to sell him, though," the Sales manager reminded them. "And we really can't afford to keep him in Education for another few weeks. I want to have my staff put on a really intensive search for a buyer who will take him for his medical licence, understanding that he'll need strict discipline for any disobedience."

"I think you should have your people looking at big porn companies too," the Processing manager said. The Education manager nodded. "I think that's the more realistic expectation. Most hospitals just don't have slave doctors or nurses. And a porn company might find it useful to have a slave available to treat their other actors."

The Admissions manager nodded. "You won't have time to market him properly till after the next auction, will you?" She hardly waits for a nod. "He's a big strong fellow? Very fit? Good: let me have him. I'll keep him under discipline, he can be groomed for Sales quite handily, and I can use another pair of hands to keep slaves moving out of the Admissions cages right now."

Eveyone nods. The bank failure six months ago led to a sudden rush of foreclosures and bankruptcies, and while they can of course pass on slaves to other less busy Centers to be processed and educated, to _be_ slaves they have to be notarized and admitted, there's no way round that.

"Will you have him sleep in the dorms?" the Education manager asked, thinking about who would run escort.

"No, we'll have him nap in one of the cages," the Admissions manager said. "Send me over a bag of slave chow and a ration bowl, and we'll see he gets fed there and everything. It's just for a few days."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

**6.2 Preparation**

Ben and Ted aren't that impressed when they're told they're to have a slave working for them in Admissions, but when they see him, they have to admit he's a good choice: he's almost as tall as they are, pretty fit, pretty strong.

"If he doesn't do exactly as you say, take him over to Processing," their boss tells them. "Or if he mouths off at you, or he talks to the other slaves."

"Talky guy, is he?" Ben asked. The slave is silent on his knees with his hands behind his back, his legs spread, his head bowed.

"That's what he gets into trouble for - when he's in trouble," their boss tells them. "Don't let him cause any while he's with us, okay? He's to be groomed for Sales daily, feed him regularly, shower him."

And he is useful, when they're so busy. They can have him hold a struggling weasel while Ben and Ted chain them up in the showers. He can use the shower head to spray a sheep or anyone in the face, if they try to talk, which frees up one of them to deal with another slave at the grooming table at the same time. He can fasten a slave up to a grooming table to be shaved, and he can even get cupcakes who only need a leash to be moved from cage to showers to grooming back to cage, though someone else obviously has to use the safety razor when the cupcake is fastened to the grooming table. He can be used for odd jobs like taking the full bag of slave clothing down to the incinerator, or sorting out the contents of a day's collection out of slave pockets.

He does what he's told, he doesn't talk at all, he eats his slave chow at their meal times, and he doesn't resist being groomed, which makes him a pleasure to shave down after a day of the routine struggle of new admissions. Because he's being groomed for Sales, they leave the hair on his head, but everywhere else has to be shaved. Then they put him into one of the emptied Admissions cages when they're done for the day, and he sleeps curled up in the corner and is sitting alert and ready to work when they get in in the morning, often with two or three cages already occupied with tearful cupcakes or sheep.

They've got him till after the big auction, at which point Sales will probably take him back and put him into one of their display cells. After he's worked with them for a couple of days, Ben offers him half a sandwich as a reward when they break for lunch. He won't take it until Ben literally taps his jaw to open his mouth and put the sandwich inside, and then the slave eats it. Ben grinned and petted the bristle of short hair. "Good boy," he tells the slave.

The slave looks back at him silently. He has blue eyes and a long face, with a closed-off expression. For a moment, Ben thinks he knows the slave, but Ben dealt with hundreds of non-people just like this one every month. He glances at Ted. "Do we know this boy?"

Ted glances over. "Sure - he was in the addictions cage not that long ago. Tobacco," he mouthed, not saying the word out loud. Ted liked going to see the addictions cage display: Ben wasn't much of a fan. But maybe that was where he had seen him.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

**6.3 Sales**

The slave Greg is ready to be sold. In preparation, they move him into a cell with its own shower. He's now allowed to wear a t-shirt and jeans. He must keep himself clean. They check this with daily inspections. He is still shaved all over his body - they remove him to the grooming room to do this every three days, just as always. But the hair on his head is being allowed to grow, though his face is kept clean-shaven.

Sexually he's very responsive, a very active libido, very sensual, not conventionally good looking but a nice, athletic body: he would fetch a fair price from the porn film market, and several companies express interest in him from the mugshots and a slideshow Processing staff have put together of him being used. None, however, want to make use of his medical training, and the Sales manager has told the staff tasked with finding a buyer for Greg that this is wasteful.

They are all relieved, therefore, when Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, in New Jersey, makes an offer. It's not much higher than the best offer hey've had from a porn company, but she doesn't get the impression they can go much higher: the porn company could probably outbid the hospital, if they were to set up a bidding war. And the porn company would know how to keep an unruly slave in line.

In the end, it's lifespan that makes the decision for PPTH. Working for a porn company, Greg probably has five years, maybe ten, of active working use ahead of him. If he's cleared his debt by then, he could legally be freed, but slaves owned by film companies generally don't work off their debt - it's too easy to write down box office takings and write up expenses. Working for a hospital, Greg could work for another twenty to thirty years. He'll be more useful, and be more useful longer.

The senior administrator, a Doctor Lisa Cuddy, inspects Greg: she does so impersonally, specifying when asked that she has no interest in his sexual response. Greg is tethered outside the room while they bargain about the price: then once Cuddy's bought him for PPTH, they walk through the sales center, Greg in tow on a leash, to the collaring room.

Cuddy selects the design - plain dark metal, four D-rings - and says no, just collar, no cuffs. The machine that fits the collar is called a Guillotine: some slaves fight it, but Greg goes down on hands and knees and lays his neck down quite readily. The metal collar clicks shut round his neck. The plastic collar, and the cuffs, are cut off with a sharp knife.

Doctor Cuddy nods approval. She clips the leash she brought to one of the D-Rings, and tugs. "Come on, Greg. Time to go."


	7. Acceptance

**7. Acceptance**

The office doesn't have his name on the door: just Department of Diagnostics. He can't really call it his department, because in effect he belongs to the department. But he will have a Diagnostics fellow attached to the department: Doctor Cuddy has shown him the contract of ownership drawn up by the hospital, and he will have power to hire and fire this fellow and any additional fellows. He will have his medical licence reactivated. He will have the authority to choose his own patients. He has a bunk where he can sleep tucked into the office wall, access to the Internet to do research, a departmental budget to buy periodicals and other publications as needed, and even access to e-mail, though only to respond to hospital consults. He is required to work a minimum of 28 hours per week in a free clinic which Doctor Cuddy is setting up: he will be allowed - in fact, required - to wear roll-top jerseys that conceal his collar, when seeing patients.

It's quite clear to him already that the other staff at the hospital think of him as medical equipment, not a doctor. He smiles, sorting through the resumes which have been sent to the hospital. He'll make them change their minds. He is so damn grateful to Doctor Cuddy for buying him, for setting him up in this position, that he could kiss her feet.

He doesn't even think, till later the next day, that he had put the resumes down on the floor, ignoring the desk and the chair, and read through them on his knees.

**end**...** and beginning**

_Tailkinker's "Greg's Story" version of chapters 6 & 7 will be posted in a few hours._

**_*...tbc... so far through first season & half of the second! _.net/s/5778376/1/CollarRedux *  
**

_Tailkinker and I are also considering writing another story about the first days of Greg's time at PPTH as a slave. Though of course we may have lost you already!_


End file.
